Discontent in the Union faction: calls for Jens Spahn to be excluded from the budget committee

In the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag there is again dissatisfaction with former parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn. According to information from the German Press Agency, the 46-year-old's absence from the plenary session and the budget committee on two days of the last week of meetings caused irritation among members of the CDU and CSU.

According to reports from “Stern”, “Spiegel” and ARD, there was a discussion in the parliamentary group’s budget working group on Friday after several of the 14 members were said to have called for Spahn to be kicked out of the Bundestag committee. The parliamentary group leadership intervened and in the end a kind of probationary period was agreed until the end of the year, the media report unanimously.

The group leadership did not want to comment. “We do not comment on internal matters,” said a spokesman for the dpa. The chairman of the AG Budget, Christian Haase, also held back: “I don’t want to comment on internal AG questions.” Spahn himself and his office initially did not respond to inquiries from the dpa on Friday and Saturday.

Spahn resigned as parliamentary group leader in July after he and his husband became parents with the help of a surrogate mother - which sparked massive outrage within the party.

Surrogacy is prohibited in Germany. The Union advocates that this ban be maintained. At the beginning of September, the parliamentary group leadership announced that Spahn would be given the position on the budget committee.

The new debate was triggered by the publication of a photo of Spahn by “Bild”, which is said to show him with his son in his arms on the Italian island of Sardinia during the current week of the Bundestag session. “Bild” later withdrew the photo. It was “created in a private setting” and by publishing it, “Bild” had “violated its own rules,” they said.

The excitement that led to the AG meeting on Friday could no longer be stopped. According to “Stern”, Spahn himself explained the two-day absence with “family reasons”. “A representation for the budget committee meeting was organized, as is usual,” the media quoted Spahn’s entourage as saying.